In a breaking development that may affect the close California Senate race, Pajamas Media has learned The Foundation for Ethics in Public Service sent a letter to Eric Holder last Thursday requesting the attorney general “begin an investigation to determine whether United States Senator Barbara Boxer violated any criminal laws or should be liable for any civil penalty for failure to disclose real property on her Personal Financial Disclosure Reports between 2002 and 2010.”

The specific property FEPS is referring to is an Oakland, California, home valued at over a million dollars and co-owned by Boxer, her husband Stewart, their son Douglas, and his wife Amy. The letter to Holder reads in part:

Despite the fact that Senator Boxer had an ownership in 854 Longridge Road [in Oakland], she failed to report this substantial real property asset on any of her personal financial disclosures between 2002 and 2010. She had also failed to report the mortgage on the property. Further, she failed to report the purchase of 854 Longridge Road in 2002. Each year Boxer was required to have filed a “full and complete report.”

The filing of false or incomplete disclosure statements is in violation of the Ethics in Government Act. The Act authorizes the Attorney General of the United States to seek civil penalties against Senators who knowingly and willy falsify or fail to report required information. The knowing and willful concealment of the existence of substantial amount of real property for a prolonged period may subject Senators to federal criminal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. paragraph 101. [other citations are available at the link]

The Oakland home is currently lived in by Douglas and his wife. This is not the first time Senator Boxer’s son has been the center of controversy. The senator reportedly paid out nearly $500,000 from her campaign contributions to her son’s public relations firm between 2001 and 2009. Those moneys could have been used to pay off the mortgage on the Oakland property, adding urgency to the DOJ investigation sought by The Foundation for Ethics in Public Service and further complicating the legal and ethical issues involved.

Well, this is certainly a last minute October surprise and it may be picked up by the MSM in California. The whole flap with Boxer’s son will play out after the election when the ethics trial of Congresswoman Maxine Waters is tried in her own ethics trial in the House.

An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation, FoxNews.com has learned.
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An October surprise?

The California Democratic Party unveiled a new tool in its kit of get-out-the-vote operations Monday: a first-of-its-kind Facebook application that sifts through a user’s friends list, matches it with the friends’ party registrations and voting histories and pops out a list people who vote Democratic but don’t regularly vote.

It then encourages users to tell their non-voting friends to cast a ballot Nov. 2.
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Creepy – yes it is

For all of the ink and airtime devoted to criticizing Republican Meg Whitman's stock deals, she's not the only top-of-the-ticket candidate who benefited from early access to initial public offerings, or IPOs.

At least twice during her political career, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer turned quick profits on IPOs that were unavailable to the general public, records and published reports show [PDF]. The transactions, which were made public in 1994 and 2000, allowed her exclusive access to several lucrative investments.
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Boxer tries to profit from everything she does

The number was 600,449 for the six months ended Sept. 30, an 8.7 percent drop from a year earlier. Sunday circulation was 900,000 901,119 down 8 8.4 percent. At least the percentage drops were not in the double digits, as happened once more with the SF Chronicle. That paper reported an 11.2 percent drop, which brings its circulation down to a stunningly low 223,549
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Read more here: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/newspaper-circulation-falls-broadly-but-at-slower-pace/

But today the conventional wisdom about Palin is being revised again, nowhere more so than within the ranks of professional Republicans. Among two dozen senior strategists and operatives with whom I’ve spoken in recent days—including many of those responsible for securing the nomination for the party’s last three standard-bearers—there is a growing consensus that Palin is running or setting herself up to run. All agreed that her entry would radically and fundamentally transform the race. Most averred that if she steps into the fray, she stands a reasonable chance of claiming the Republican prize. Indeed, more than one argued that she is already the de facto front-runner.
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Read it all

Non-stop political ads from Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina over the next week.

There had been some uncertainty as to whether the Fiorina Campaign would be able to compete with Boxer on the number of ad impressions over the last week of the campaign but that concern has been laid to rest.

With outside groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce already pouring in millions to defeat California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced a $3-million independent expenditure for television ads in the final week of the campaign.

The committee, which rarely makes major expenditures in California, had already spent the maximum allowed — $4.8 million — in coordinated expenditures with GOP nominee Carly Fiorina’s campaign in what it views as a highly competitive race.

The new independent expenditure comes after Fiorina announced she was putting another $1 million of her own money into the campaign, allowing her to match Boxer’s cash on hand for the final stretch.

It appears that Fiorina will be able to match the Boxer ad buys over the next seven days. This is bad news for Boxer.

With the polls so very close (also bad news for the incumbent Senator, Boxer), the ground operations of the California Republicans (GOTV), including the Meg Whitman for California Governor Campaign may very well decide this U.S. Senate race.

California U.S Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is “on air” with a new Fred Davis television ad.

From the press release:

As part of a continuing effort to highlight the stark contrast between incumbent senator Barbara Boxer’s failed tenure in Washington and Carly Fiorina’s commitment to common-sense problem solving, the Fiorina campaign today launched the fifth 30-second ad of its general election statewide television advertisement campaign, titled “Crushed.”

“Barbara Boxer’s legacy after 28 years of failed leadership in Washington is bleak, as Californians across the state have watched their livelihoods be crushed, with more than 2.25 million people out of work, losing income and facing the very real possibility of losing their homes. Yet Barbara Boxer is so out of touch that she continues to try to fool voters into believing her economic policies, including the stimulus, have worked,” said Carly for California Campaign Manager Marty Wilson. “The people of this state deserve a leader in Washington who will fight to get our economy moving forward again. Californians have the opportunity to make a change for California’s future by voting for new leadership in the U.S. Senate on Election Day – and that begins by retiring Barbara Boxer and electing Carly Fiorina on November 2.”